were not; their souls died with the body; yet some of these Tooas ventured to think that they too would live again.[489] A sceptical Kayan could hardly believe that men continue to exist after death; for then they would return to visit those they love. “But,” he concluded, “who knows?” The traditionary lore of the Kayans answers many deep questions; but the keener intelligences inquire further—“why do the dead become visible only in dreams?” etc.[490] A Tanghul told me, says Mr. T. C. Hodson, that no one had ever seen a Lai (deity): when things happened men said a Lai had done it. “In his view clearly a Lai was a mere hypothesis.”[491] Of such examples of the occurrence of “free-thought” in all parts of the world, no doubt, a little investigation would discover many more. Everywhere some savages think for themselves; though, like civilised folk, they cannot always venture to avow their conclusions. We must not suppose that belief is as uniform as custom or conventional doctrine: custom and convention hinder thought in dull people, but do not enslave it in the “keener intelligence.” Without the enviable advantage of personal intimacy with savages, I have, by reading about them, gained the impression that they enjoy a considerable measure of individuality—as much as the less educated Europeans—and are not mere creatures of a social environment. The most backward savages have a large stock of common sense concerning the properties of bodies, of wind and water and fire, of plants and animals and human nature; for this is the necessary ground of their life. This common sense has certain characters which are in conflict with their superstitions; the facts known to common sense are regular, proportional, the same for all; not often failing and needing excuses, not extravagant and disconnected, not depending on the presence of some fantastic mountebank. Savages do not draw explicitly the comparisons that make this conflict apparent; but it may be felt without being defined. Some of them, especially, are (as amongst ourselves) naturally inclined to a positive way of thinking; their common sense predominates over the suggestions of Magic and Animism, and they, more than others aware of the conflict, become the proto-sceptics or rationalists. Lecky observes that beliefs and changes of belief depend not upon definite arguments, but upon habits of thought. In the seventeenth century a new habit of thought overcame the belief in witchcraft and miracles;[492] and in many other centuries it has everywhere done the same for those in whom the “apperceptive mass” of common sense became more or less clearly and steadily a standard of belief, repelling the apperceptive masses of Magic and Animism with all their contents and alliances. They had more definite ideas than others, little love of the marvellous, little subjection to fear, desire, imagination.